On Losing It

I love my daughter. I mean it... I really, really love my daughter. She is beautiful and smart and fun. That being said, I really get ticked when I have to clean up after her. It is par for the course, I know. I still can't pretend I like it. She is eight years old. This means that she can't eat without getting crumbs all over the place. This means that she can't pick up her dirty clothes and put them in a hamper. This means that her toys are always all over the place. I'm looking for strategies on how to teach her to consistently pick up after herself. Parents with a clue, let me in on it.

I have learned how to deal with most of the unpleasantries of life. Most things roll off my back. What I find interesting is that fact that my daughter is the person with whom I lose it the most. She is certainly not the person who deserves it the most (if I were keeping score). I start to ask myself... "What's up with this?"

The idea of losing control assumes that we are in control, and I believe this is where the breakdown occurs. Parents "lose it" because they believe they are supposed to be "in control." We are taught to believe that adults are in control, or should be.

But control is an illusion; there is no such thing as control, only the appearance of control which is maintained by pushing our feelings down, "flatlining" our emotions.

If I look at what I'm feeling as I'm "losing it" I usually find things like extreme fatigue and overwhelm. It's not what she is doing that is causing my reaction. Usually, I'm just plain tired. When I'm tired, I want things to go my way so I can relax then rest as soon as possible. Anything that interrupts that pathway gets on my damned nerves. It is no coincidence that I usually have these feelings and become irrationally impatient at the end of a day. After driving an hour to pick her up from latch key on time, after dealing with those people I work with all day, after traffic and bad weather... let's face it... I'm burned out and often in a sour mood. The farther away it is from Sunday, the more exhausted I am. It's not her fault. She gets the short end of the stick, being the only child of a single parent in America.

Thinking about all of this led me back to a book that I read before she was born. Pregnancy spurred a new category in my book-buying addiction. I probably had 15-20 parenting books in my collection before I started to let some of my books go (which of itself is a process). This one is my favorite... and I decided to read it again and really put it into practice. It's called The 10 Greatest Gifts I Give My Children. I highly recommend it to all parents.